Morality at the Expense of Theology

There is a tendency among some to undervalue doctrine, to exact morality at the expense of theology, and to deny the importance of a sound creed. I do not doubt that a sound creed has often covered an unsound life, and that “much creed, little faith,” is true of multitudes. But when we hear it said, “Such a man is far gone in error, but his heart is in the right place; he disbelieves the substitution on the cross, but he rests on Christ Himself,” we wonder, and ask, “What then was the Bible written for?” it may be (if this be the case) a book of thought . . . , but it is no standard of truth, no infallible expression of the mind of an infallible being! The solemnity with which that book affirms the oneness of truth, and the awful severity with which it condemns every departure from the truth, as a direct attack on God Himself, shows us the danger of saying that a man’s heart may be in its right place though his head contains a creed of error.